I love Dragonflies. To stand close by a pond or a river
in summer and witness these giant insects move through
the air in complete control, their helicopter-bubble eyes
taking in a panorama - the like of which I will never see
through human eyes - fills me with wonder!
When my friend, John Wells, an ardent microscopist gave
me a small cardboard box on a visit to his house one
morning, it wasn't until he said - "I'm afraid I
will have to call my cat St. George...", that it
dawned on me what was in the box.

Inside was a fallen Dragon... or more precisely: a
somewhat dried up and damaged dragonfly!

A sad sight to see such a beautiful creature now looking
more like a broken toy-flying machine, its sophisticated
giant eyes - now dented dead spheres. Still, even in this
sorry state, it was an opportunity to take a look at what
was left of its structure under a microscope. I thought
you might enjoy what I saw with my stereo, and you might
find these images and article an inspiration to become
more interested in these extraordinary insects. I have
made all the images in 3D to try and show Dragonfly
structure more realistically!

"A fallen
Dragon! Right eye - dented. Front of head - torn!"

Dragonflies, along with Mayflies, make up one of the
oldest order of insects - the Palaeoptera. They are over
300 million years old! Their ancestors were known to have
wing spans of 70 centimeters or more (approx. 27 inches).
Their importance to humans, other than their bright
colours and inspiration to artists and designers, comes
from the fact that their larvae feed on many types of
aquatic prey including mosquitoes - which are vectors of
serious diseases like Malaria.

You can see in my image below, a rip in the front of the
head of this fallen giant - probably the result of a
'playful' cat paw! In Britain, over 90% of the habitats
supporting Dragonflies have gone, leaving them at risk
from gradual extinction.